City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good morning. Welcome to the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners Board Work Session for Tuesday, May 26, 2026. It is 9.04 a.m. My name is Ty Mentzer, Chair of the Board. To my left, Vice Chair Commissioner Wayne Fournier. Trying to get the camera to move. He was waving. And then Commissioner Rachel Grant, Commissioner Emily Klaus, Commissioner Carolina Mejia virtually, County Manager Leonard Hernandez across from me, and Clerk of the Board Amy Davis, Assistant County Manager Josh Cummings. Okay, first up is a first look at proposed business agenda for June 2nd, 2026, which is a week from today. So folks, pull that forward. First up is standing items. District 2, leading privilege of allegiance. That's Commissioner Grant. Land acknowledgement. And approval of agenda. Public comment related to agenda items. County manager update. Anything to preview for us? There are a few department updates we'll be providing at that time.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Any questions on standing items? There's no proclamation, I see, Madam Clerk.

That's right, no proclamation.

All right. Okay, consent item one is contract with Ross Strategic for integrated water resource management.

Good morning. Good morning, Commissioner. Sorry, I'm throwing things. Not at you, though, I promise. Thanks.

We've got four items this morning, and they all represent our continued work in CPET to support ongoing water resources planning and climate initiatives. So this first one is following through on our request for qualifications that went out about six weeks ago for consultant support for the integrated water resources framework. Ross Strategic was selected through a competitive process A contract in the amount of 200,000. If you recall, you also approved an option to increase it by 150,000 to support Nisqually watershed planning work. So we are requesting that the board authorize the CPED director to go ahead and extend that contract or expand that contract to include additional funds if we need that consultant support. The work is part of the integrated water resources framework for the consultant is to support the program assessments that we're doing. as well as develop recommendations for our Thurston County programs, spanning all CPET, environmental health, as well as public works. They will also be supporting engagement activities, policy development and regional gaps analysis, and internal work has begun with a steering committee. And so once Ross is brought on board, they'll be helping with that as well. Questions? This is all grant funded, and so that grant was approved in February.

Is this integrated water resource management, does this connect to the that I saw Derek and Kevin presenting to Alliance for Healthy South Sound? No.

I mean, they're all connected, right, because water's all connected, but we have three, no, four contracts right now for water resource planning. So the one that you saw presentation on was the Nisqually Watershed Planning, which there is an option here if we get to a place where we need more technical support.

The first part is the 200. The NIS quality is the 150 if they need to get to it.

It's an optional component if we need technical support beyond what we can tackle internally. So what is the 200 for? 200 is for integrated water resources. So that's that look internally across all of our water resources programs to identify opportunities to better align them and and then also look outward to our water resource partners.

So the answer to the question is yes, the second part, the 150 is related to the presentation that he saw.

Yeah, but the 200 is not.

Why? It's all related.

But they're all related. Sorry. We've got the same people working on all of them.

So, I mean, I'm just trying to give.

I think a lot of people are interested in this, and when it seems really technical even to us, then I know it's going to seem less comprehensible to folks that are listening in. But like back when Commissioner Mejia and I were talking about One Water at first, is this kind of an outflow? I mean, is this kind of something down the chain from that?

Yes, you can think of this as the One Water grant. Absolutely.

implementation is trying to use the words one water. So the first the integrated internal study is to get a baseline of what all our insights, the internal workings, that's the 200,000 because it is so complicated.

Yeah.

Thank you. Ashley, thank you so much for this. I actually think this would be a great department item just to kind of highlight the work that's been going on as Commissioner Munster. It is a topic of high interest. I know that I'm very excited about this. I was very excited when I saw it on the agenda. So I think it would be just great to highlight the work that's going on and that's continuing to happen.

Good job getting this grant. Well done. Yeah, we've got a few others.

Sorry, they get confused.

I'm sorry. Without the grant, the work would not be able to proceed or would not be able to proceed as planned. So it is great that the team took the direction from the board, gosh, almost two years ago now, and has been working that through. And there's a whole process laid out for that. Thank you.

We work with, just for the other commissioners' benefit, because I think I've been on this committee for now eight years, but we work with Ross Strategic on the Alliance for Healthy South Sound, and they seem to always do high-quality stuff, so it's not shocking that they would be the most qualified, but that's exciting that they are interested in helping us with this. All right. Then let's go to you two. I'm going to see net gain framework contract with Washington Department of Commerce.

So this is another grant that we have received through the Department of Commerce that is related to water resources. It's also related to implementation, ongoing implementation and monitoring of our critical areas ordinance, as well as our shoreline master program. For commissioners that aren't aware, our obligations under the state framework for planning is that we ensure no net loss of critical areas and our shoreline when we're implementing development projects. We're taking that to the next level modeled after our voluntary stewardship program to not just look at no net loss, but to actually create a methodology for a net gain framework. So rather than just stopping at making sure we're not losing the functions and values of our environmental sensitive areas, we're gonna take a look at a watershed scale at whether we're gaining functions and values of our environmentally sensitive areas. As far as we know, we'll be the first in the state to establish this net gain framework, and we're gonna be doing it in partnership with Thurston Conservation District. They're our partner for the voluntary stewardship program, and so it made sense to go ahead and partner with them on this project. It was also a commitment we made to them when we had to reduce the budget for the voluntary stewardship program, funding for the district that we would find a grant to continue work on related items, and that's a piece of what this is. So you have two items before you today, both the acceptance of the grant from the Department of Commerce And then the follow-up item is establishment of the ILA with the Thurston Conservation District to partner with us in implementation of that grant.

So number two is receiving the money from Commerce at $489,000. And number three is providing the money, $275,000, out to the Conservation District.

And the rest of the funds will go toward our internal staff resources to complete our items in the grant.

So is the goal to figure out what you would want to measure to ascertain that and then set up a framework for how you would go about improving the metrics that you've identified? I mean, setting up a framework for... assessing and then achieving a net ecological gain? Is that what this is gonna do?

The achievement part I think would be a separate piece. This is really prototyping what a framework would look like. So what data sources are you using? What kind of methodology to analyze that data? So we've done it for the voluntary stewardship program and what we found was ecosystem gains across all of our watersheds as they related to agriculture. but this would expand it out to all of our environmentally sensitive areas at that much bigger scale than your site by site.

This might be a question, topic for a different time, but like why, I mean, this is coming from, I know there's been a lot of conversation and bills and this, that, and the other from my work on Sanford Recovery Council at state level. And if the state's obviously putting out a grant, right? It's a state grant. So why, I mean, I guess what, Why wouldn't the state just hire a consultant to study whatever area they want to study? What's our role in this? Why are we being involved in it? Because we have some of the data that they need?

We have a lot of data. I don't think every county is going to be able to approach this the same way, so we're going to prototype it. Given how long we've spent in the voluntary stewardship program, I think we're further along than most counties, how they think about it. And so we're just ripe right now with where our data is and where our analytical methods are to prototype this.

This is Dushman County being out of the curve and innovative and going to commerce and saying we want to be innovative in thinking about how we protect the environment and conserve. and creating a net gain framework with the data that we have. So kudos to Ashley and her team for recognizing they've got the pieces of the puzzle, but they need help building the framework if that's what the grant is for from Commerce.

Other questions? I think this is important enough that we should probably have a board work session on it. Ashley, you're bringing an item forward to facilitate a grant. But within that grant board is the department taking a huge amount of initiative to take the spirit of what this board wants to accomplish in our community and in our environment and being on the cutting edge of implementing that. The point where we're working with Commerce to get the data. I think if we had a different type of director who wanted just to mark time, we would not be seeing this grant come through. I don't think we'd be seeing the grant for the One Water come through, but we have a director who is looking for ways to implement the vision of the board and to do so in the best way possible with the tools that they have in the department, meaning not just talking the talk, but actually figuring out how do we operationalize that into what data do we need that then transforms how we make decisions in the process. I think one of the key components of that is within the title, the net gain. It sounds like a kind of a odd phrase, something that I asked about, like, why was that in the title item? because it's not just we want to maintain, we actually want to grow the opportunities we have in our communities. We want to see growth in this area. So it's exciting. We'll bring this back as a board work session in the next couple weeks, just so we can unpackage it.

Okay, that's two and three. Do you need to say anything more about three? I think you covered it, right? So we'll go to four. Also CPED, request for quotes and qualifications for home energy score.

So this is following up on the county's passage of the home energy score ordinance back in March. So as part of that, the collaborative is funding the bringing on board of a consultant to ensure the implementation of the home energy score program. and that's under the requirements of the Department of Energy. Where does that money come from? The money has been allocated already to the collaborative, so we're just paying one piece of that, and the other contributions are coming from the cities. Allocating to the collaborative. My understanding is the general fund is where that amount came from. The general fund. Unless there's additional information. It's not grant funded, I know.

Our contribution was coming from an earmarked money that we earmarked some five years ago. It may not be any longer. It was like 300 plus thousand. So it may be coming from that previously earmarked money. Or if it's not, then it would be.

Thank you. Ashley, you mentioned like this contribution is also coming from the cities as well. I'm wondering, I know not all the cities that are participating in the climate collaborative have passes. And so kind of can you walk us through that and how that works?

Yeah, it was identified as an initiative through the interlocal agreement. And so the funding has been allocated by the collaborative for implementation of this, even if there are cities like the City of Lacey and City of Tumwater that have yet to pass the Home Energy Score Ordinance. The framework will exist for implementation, at which time those cities do choose to pass it or consider it.

So here we are issuing requests for quotes and qualifications for consultant services.

And that is a role that to Rebecca's credit, she's really good at contracts. And so we are volunteering to support the contract piece of the home energy score implementation. It is worth noting that city of Tumwater, or I'm sorry, city of Olympia, is taking the lead in the engagement piece. So they're holding meetings with realtors and inspection firms following up on that component of implementation.

Commissioner, as the item says in the background, the IAS, this work will be funded by equal contributions from Thurston County, City of Olympia, City of Tumwater, City of Lacey, according to the terms of the interlocal agreement of the Thurston Climate Mitigation Collaborative. So it's not that the county's paying the entire amount?

No, but because we're holding the contract for the whole thing, we have to have the total amount reflected here.

As part of the implementation, continued public education, because I was contacted by somebody from outside the county yesterday asking, they're wanting to move here, and they're wanting to know, they're thinking they want to build a house. And one of the things, they're talking about all the other permit fees and HCP implications and then they brought up this just totally not understanding what it is or what it means but worried what this will cost if they go and buy a house that's used as opposed to new because they're under the impression if they buy a used house they have to make all the upgrades that are required or mentioned in some type of home energy score assessment. I know that's not how it was designed or how it was sold to us. But I think there's still a lot of public education that is needed.

Yeah, because it will be, it's a programmatic lift. We're going to be coordinating our communication efforts with, in this case, the city of Olympia, because they're the ones that have passed. At this point, they're taking the lead on that. And as materials get developed, we will go ahead and start sending them out through our communications channel. So Rebecca is already working on that coordinated education slash communication plan, but we're not going to duplicate efforts. So Olympia is taking the lead at this point on creation of the items with our input.

Okay, other questions on item four? All right, let's go to item five, which is emergency services. Thank you, Ashley. Neese agreement with West Thurston Regional Fire Authority.

Good morning, Commissioners. Ben Miller-Todd, Director of Emergency Services. This lease agreement is just a lease agreement to House Medic 14, our unit that's in Rochester. It's on Sargent Road, just north of Highway 12 down there. We have a routine lease agreement that we've signed for a number of years with West Thurston, and this is just a renewal of that. It took us a little bit of time to make sure everybody was on the same page, so I apologize for the duration that you noticed that you're approving this in the middle of. The duration we're currently working on future years, but I did want to highlight that this does reflect identical language to the ALS contract agreements that were recently passed in November. And so we're applying those lease agreement components to Wes Thurston's lease. If you have any questions, please let me know. The total dollar figure on this lease is $24,456, and I believe that last little 23 cents is added in there. Ben, thank you.

Any questions for Ben? All right, thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Ben. Black Lake Regatta application, Sheriff's Office item, and I saw it under Sheriff Mencius. Good morning.

Good morning, Commissioners. Good morning. This is just a request to approve an application for a regatta from the Pacific Northwest Boat Racing Association for a race event at Black Lake on July 11th and July 12th. We've received the packet from them and they've completed all the necessary forms and applications that they've had to do. So just requesting that this is approved. It's something that happens twice a year usually at Black Lake and also twice a year we usually get a different outfit out at Lawrence Lake. So it's something we've been doing for a number of years already.

Questions for Undersheriff. I'm reading a book about the history of Nisqually Valley and they're talking about, they referenced these boat races in Lawrence Lake from I don't know, 40s or 50s, a really long time ago. So it's been going for a while. All right, thank you. That's it for the Sheriff's Office there. So we go to the next three items, Madam Clerk, are I think they're the decisions, just manifestations of decisions we made last week to...

Right, this is the board's direction from last week.

Board direction from last week. So is there anything? I assume there's no questions on historic commission, veterans advisory board and pack mountain board of directors appointments that we made last week. This will make that formal. We'll have a voucher list from April 27th. Any questions on any of that? Okay. Hearing none, we'll go to department item. The first one is resolution to amend 2026 position control schedule.

Maria Ponce, HR Director. This resolution is to update the position control and it's related to the 2026 budget amendment one. Within the resolution, there are a number of positions that are being abolished. Some that are being created. This resolution also takes care of the transfer of a couple of FTEs from the clerk's office to the prosecuting attorney's office to continue the domestic violence. We're working on that arrangement. And with that, I'll take any questions you may have.

Questions for Maria? Yes. Part of an Item 2, Resolution Decree Fund 1150, Jurisdictional Court Services Fund.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Okay. Let's see. So this is a resolution to create Fund 1150, the Jurisdictional Court Services Fund. It's requested that the Board of County Commissioners approve the creation of a new special revenue fund created to administer the funding from jurisdictions for court services provided by the Thurston County, I'm sorry, provided by Thurston County, primarily by way of Thurston County's District Court. RCW 3934-180 outlines the criminal justice responsibilities of Washington state counties and the principles which must be followed in negotiating interlocal agreements or contracts for criminal justice purposes with cities and requires consideration of anticipated cost of services and anticipated and potential revenue to fund the services to include fines and fees, criminal justice funding. levied for criminal justice purposes. And today, Thurston County has successfully negotiated agreements with local jurisdictions without the need for binding arbitration to include the cities of Olympia, Lacey, Tumwater, 1090, and Rainier. The funds from this account may only be expended for the purposes of providing court services to local jurisdictions of Thurston County in accordance with RCW 39, 34, 180, and each specific interlocal agreement. Happy to answer any questions if you have them.

Thankful for Summer, our budget finance manager, coming up with an approach to structure how we receive these funds in a way that proactively will keep track of them and make it really clean and clear how these dollars come in and what they're used for. So well done, because it would have become a bit messy had you not dug deep and come up with an approach on how to address that.

Thank you. I also would like to thank our partners within the county, specifically Frankie Peters and the district court office for really, you know, being open to this idea and really offering some critical thinking and a little bit of pushback to help us come up with the best possible plan as we move forward.

Other questions for summer? Okay. Thank you. Summer. Next up is item three, RESOLUTION TO CREATE FUND 1250, PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX, HB 2015.

OKAY. SO THIS IS A RESOLUTION RELATING TO THE CREATION OF THE NEW SPECIAL REVENUE FUND NUMBER 1250 FOR PUBLIC SAFETY SALES TAX, HB 2015. IN MAY 2025, THE WASHINGTON STATE LEGISLATURE APPROVED ESHB 2015 SUPPORTING TWO ADDITIONAL FUNDING MECHANISMS TO SUPPORT LAW AND JUSTICE, INCLUDING A LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT GRANT AND NEW PUBLIC SAFETY SALES AND USE TAX. On December 16th, 2025, the Board of County Commissioners approved Resolution 16587, imposing the Councilmanic 1 10th of 1% sales and use tax for criminal justice purposes. This request is to establish the fund in which to deposit and manage the tax revenue received. The source of revenue for this fund will be generated by 1 10th of 1%. as authorized under RCW 8214-345 to support criminal justice purposes. And the funds from this account may only be expended for the broad range of public safety purposes, including but not limited to law enforcement, domestic violence, staffing public defenders, et cetera, as stated in the resolution 16587.

Board, as we are putting this item together, I think it's important to note that the state establishes fairly quick and so the research is ongoing about how this affects all aspects of the county including our cities i think that the initial understanding uh we're going to verify with the department of revenue and cj pc to make sure that we understand how it all plays out because we have olympia was also implemented but some of the other cities have not So there's some additional research that when we first reached out, some of that information was still pending.

Questions for Summer on item three. Okay, thank you. Item four, resolution to adopt the 2627 operating capital budget amendment one.

Thank you. So this is a resolution relating to the budget amendments to the 2026-2027 biennial budget pursuant to RCW 3640-100 authorizing supplemental operating and capital appropriations to the 2026-2027 biennial budget. It is necessary to adjust the 2026-2027 county biennial budget to account for revenue and expenditures which are now identified and were not previously known at the time of the county's adoption of the original budget. Thurston County has received new grants in which departments need to increase to the expense budget to utilize, and the county has increased capital funding related to projects that were not completed in 2025 and will instead be continued into 2026 and 2027. Amendment 1 was published in the Nisqually Valley News on May 14th, May 21st, and May 29th, 2026. THE OVERALL INCREASE TO THE 2026 EXPENDITURE APPROPRIATIONS TO GENERAL FUND IS $2,962,599. INCREASE TO ALL OTHER FUNDS IS $82,710,775. THE OVERALL DECREASE TO THE 2027 EXPENDITURE APPROPRIATION TO THE GENERAL FUND IS A NEGATIVE $4,360,904 AND THE INCREASE TO OTHER FUNDS IS $34,015,255.

Budget amendment questions. We've obviously been over this one several times.

And then once this is implemented, that'll trigger the ability for the clerk's office to start working on opening

Yes, the language is currently in the proviso. It is still in the hands of legal, so it's just getting some last-minute tweaks.

I will add that the other aspect of what the clerk is working on is in partnership with the PAO's office. And they're going to need a few weeks to develop an MOU between the two offices on how they're going to operate and run those positions. But that is under works. Is that MOU come before us? I believe so.

Yes, it should. Yes.

All right. Thank you.

Thank you. Nothing else.

I don't think so. Unless you want to talk about pavement. I'll let Matt do that.

Here, I worked at C. Have a great day. Thank you.

All right, let's talk pavement. All right, Director Ward for Pavement Rating Services. All right, Public Works is requesting, excuse me, Matt Huntsman, Thurston County Public Works, County Engineer. Public Works is requesting the Board of County Commissioners approve a contract with IMS Infrastructure Management Systems of Florida from the city of Largo, L-A-R-G-O, in the amount of $231,196.27 to provide pavement conditions. Public Works maintains a history of pavement surface conditions to meet legal requirements and support the county's pavement preservation program. In previous years, Public Works has collected pavement conditions through a manual windshield method performed on an annual basis. This includes rating arterial and collector roadways every two years and local roadways every four years using the human eye to detect pavement defects. Technology has evolved. Companies have developed automated methods of collecting this data and other agencies in Washington have begun adopting these automated methods. On April 2nd, 2020, excuse me, 2026, four consultant companies submitted proposals in a response to an RFP issued by Public Works. A committee consisting of Public Works and the County Road Administration Board staff evaluated and scored proposals based on company qualifications, experience, technical approach, and price. The award of this contract will provide the data formatted for submission to the County Road Administration Board to comply with the regulations and maintain eligibility to receive motor vehicle fuel tax.

Okay, so what we'll get is like an assessment of the quality of all of our county roads. Exactly. It helps you prioritize pavement.

So that's how we... I don't wanna say anything else.

So what's the process that they use that's different than the window method, and why do we have to send all this money to Florida?

So they're using a laser bar setup to go ahead and scan the pavement and look for those defects.

So they come in, rent a vehicle, and mount some laser?

They have vehicles with laser bars on them, and so they'll run all of our county roads, and then they'll provide that data to us so that we can provide it to CRAB. which has a decision tree within our, within their software to prioritize what Mr. Minster was talking about, our chip seal projects or overlay projects.

Is this like a new technology or is it a very specialized thing that's hard to find?

I would like to say that your public works department is out in front and one of the first counties to do this, but we're not. This is being utilized by a lot of cities and other counties in the, around Washington.

Do they do it themselves or do they all hire a Florida company from larger?

No, some of them, I think it's across the board. I do know that a lot of them do hire companies just because the equipment's expensive. That being said, you know what, rather than trying to speak to this, I could send out a follow-up email on how other counties and cities are collecting this information. Is there, was this a competitive process, Matt? Correct. We received four responses to the RFP.

The Florida company was the best priced or the most qualified?

So we worked, one, the most important thing is we made sure that we worked with the County Road Administration Board because we have to make sure that they collect the data in a way that's gonna be compatible to the County Road Administration Board software. And so not only was their data able to do that, but it also was a more competitively priced source than some of the others.

So the County Road Administration Board, like they're involved because they funnel some dollars our way. Correct.

So this is one of the standards of good practice that you have to maintain a pavement condition system in order to receive that standards of good practice so that you can receive motor vehicle fuel tax. There'd be like, I mean, I could imagine.

I imagine that like, you know, counties have to have some way to like properly prioritize and then they submit. And like the typical kind of government way is to sort of, you know, every county gets, you know, proportionate money based on population or whatever. But you could imagine a world where everybody was using the same technology and it wouldn't, you wouldn't have to like, the state could prioritize. Like, if you have the worst roads, you get more money. Like, even if other county doesn't get any money because they got good roads. Like, they could really target with apples to apples. If everybody was utilizing it. If everybody was utilizing it, they can basically fix the worst roads in the state versus trying to just dole the money out. Like,

And I would say that this is kind of a step in that direction because it's taken a lot of the subjectivity out of it. You got a consistent evaluation method that's being used across multiple counties.

So, I mean, yeah, like if another, yeah. Okay. That's kind of, you answered my question. That's interesting. Other questions for Matt on this one? Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. That's the end of department items. plus the added one that Commissioner McKeon requested that will be moved. Public comment related to general matters. Commissioner, community reports. No public hearings. So that is the end of the review. If everybody's good there, we'll move to item three, which is a public health item. It looks like environmental health division, uncollected operational permit certificate or OPC fees.

I JUST WANT TO GIVE THEM A HUGE THANKS FOR BEING PROACTIVE, LOOKING AT THEIR OPERATIONS AND LOOKING AT WAYS THAT THEY CAN BRING IDEAS FORWARD FOR THE BOARD. YOU DON'T ALWAYS HAVE DEPARTMENT DIRECTORS AND DIVISION LEADERS WHO ARE THINKING PROACTIVELY LIKE THIS. SO I APPRECIATE IT BECAUSE IT'S EXTRA WORK IN THE MIDST OF EVERYTHING ELSE THAT YOU'RE DOING. THERE'S A LOT OF WORK THAT ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH DOES FOR OUR ENTIRE COMMUNITY. SO WITH THAT, I'LL HAND OVER TO COLE.

Jen Freiheit, Director of Public Health and Social Services. And yes, today we are here to look at your direction for how we collect outstanding operational permit certificate fees that we have not been collecting. And so this is part of the cleanup that we're doing throughout the department and especially in this division as far as making sure we are updating all the articles and codes and collecting any fees that we should be collecting. So I'll turn it over to Susan Long, our Division Director, to talk about slide two.

environmental health division director. So Thurston County sanitary code article four requires renewable operational certificates, OPCs issued by the environmental health division for certain types of septic systems within designated areas of the county. For septic systems with OPCs outside the marine recovery area, a renewal fee is required either annually or every three years, depending on system type or use. Prior to the expiration of an OPC, the department sends three reminder notifications, including requirements for renewal and invoices with the renewal fee. If the requirements are not met or the fee is not paid, the system is assigned a status of non-conforming. Once the system has reached non-conforming status, it is flagged in our permit system, which limits the owner's ability to obtain a building permit until the system is back into conformance. Septic system owners are sent reminder notifications, including outstanding fees either annually or every three years on the renewal date until the system is back into conformance. SINCE APPROXIMATELY 2005, THE DEPARTMENT HAS NOT ACTIVELY BEEN PURSUING OUTSETTING OPC FEES. OUTSETTING FEES ARE TYPICALLY BEING ASSIGNED AT THE TIME, BEING PAID AT THE TIME A PROPERTY OWNER WANTS THE SYSTEM BACK INTO INFORMANCE, USUALLY AT THE TIME THE PROPERTY SALE OR WHEN THEY WANT A BUILDING PERMIT. DURING 2024 AND 2025, THE DEPARTMENT BEGAN INVESTIGATING THE AMOUNT OF OUTSETTING FEES AND THE METHOD FOR COLLECTION. THE DEPARTMENT DETERMINED WE WOULD UTILIZE A COLLECTION AGENCY CALLED ARMADA, WHICH IS ALREADY UNDER CONTRACT WITH COMMUNITY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT AND PUBL

All right, so on the next slide, our recommendation is to go back just two years and start collecting outstanding OPC fees on properties. Since 2024, that would result in 580 different septic systems and an additional revenue of $117,000. And the collected funds will be used to support our countywide operations and maintenance activities. For example, sending out the three reminder mailings upon renewal, the staff who will follow up on reported septic deficiencies and septic failures, and that will also help with our self-inspector classes and our small grant and riser rebate programs. And so yes, this was a deliberate recommendation that we only go back the two years. It'd be untenable to go all the way back to 2005 where we have not collected from, and that would only result in an additional $188,000 if we went all the way back to 2005.

So this is a change in process that public health is going from being reactive and passive to now being proactive and helping along. So what happens in the past is people would come in for a building permit and they'd get a surprise hit. All of a sudden, there's a bunch of fees that they didn't know about. Or maybe they did, but they weren't being followed up on. So what public health is trying to do now is to be more proactive, to send out multiple notices, to ensure that people know that they need to get their septic information up to date and paid. And this is that process. So going forward, this will be the process that you will be proactive, engaged with the folks as opposed to reactive and passive. This is a big change. It's a good thing.

I appreciate that. My question of that, you said of that 117,000, a portion of that would be used to pay for the notifications that are going out about the 117,000. How much is, how much of that will be, what's that?

Three notices for all and moving forward because it just, the mailing costs money. So part of that would help pay for that. The notices in general. And do you have the... Yeah, like how much of that, if that's like 5% of the 100, but if it's... We'll have to calculate that. I don't have that specific amount. Just break it down.

It'd be weird to me if like a big significant portion of the proceeds would be used to pay for the notifications. I don't think it'd be quite that much, but they're not there yet.

580 systems, I mean, you know, what do you estimate, like... You estimate like 75 cents to print and mail a thing. And if it's three notices to 500 systems, that's 1,500. So we're talking about $1,200. But in terms of the other math that you, could you walk me through? You said, so two years worth is going to be 117,000. But you said if we went all the way back to 2002, we'd only be 188. How does that?

Yes, we looked up all the properties and so back to 2005. And then that would be an additional $188,000 if we did go all the way back to 2005.

Why so much less if the last two years is hundreds? People just have not been paying a lot lately?

Because of ownership change and different things of that nature.

Yeah, that's correct. I mean, basically, the older you go back, the less there are.

Is there action we need to take to waive the fees beyond 2024? Correct. And that's what we're seeking today.

and they won't get a hit when they come to the billing department because we're gonna wipe those clean.

And the next slide, we'll talk a little bit about what we'll do. Okay, yeah, we'll keep going then.

Last slide, last slide. By the end of the third quarter, Environmental Health will develop a mailing list and finalize relevant policies and procedures to ensure the collection process is standardized. Beginning in the fourth quarter, Environmental Health will mail property owners a series of notifications regarding overdue fees We will only engage the collection agency service if property owners are not responsive to our notifications. Additionally, we work with our fiscal team to write off uncollectible accounts received in properties with fees older than 2024. We will also work with IT to remove the uncollected fees from our permit database. And now we're happy to answer questions.

So is it three notices that they get or four?

So the way that CPET does it right now with their collections is they do 30, 60, 90, and 120 days. And then it will go to the collection service if we have a receipt.

So four opportunities to come in. Right.

Board, part of the reason why I public health and the environmental health divisions bring this forward, is in their research and looking at this, there was no real clear reason we should not be continuing to charge these. What they pieced together sometime in the, was it before the pandemic? 2005. 2005, way before the pandemic. Way. It just stopped, they stopped charging them without any real documentation as to why. And we need to be more responsive and communicating with the public and we need to make sure that septic units are meeting their standards for the protection of the environment. So I appreciate them looking at how do they figure out moving it forward in a communication standpoint, but then looking at what's the best way to activate the appropriate fees in a way that's communicating with the public rather than, as Josh said, people coming in and finding out that they have fees or they have something that's deemed passive standpoint. We want to be proactive in this stance.

This item was discussed at Board of Health Policy Subcommittee, right? Just making sure I'm keeping the dots. But because it comes to us because it's got the financial piece to it.

You have to approve the write-off of those other fees from 2005 to 2024.

I know there was, just for the rest of the board's information, there was concurrence amongst the policy subcommittee that this was a good approach or a reasonable approach. Other questions?

All right, thank you. Good job. Thank you. Do they need to take a vote? Yes. Oh, so we need a motion.

I was going to ask if this would be on a business agenda or is this one action right now?

Action can be taken. Yeah, action can be taken now.

I move to recommend recovery of a portion of outstanding OPC fees on the current property owner since 2024 and write off outstanding accounts receivable older than 2024. Second.

Motion and second to approve. the collection of fees from 24 right off those previous 24 discussion on that motion. Commissioner Claus.

Yeah, I just have a question. So I appreciate the staff's recommendation and desire to not hit people with unknown fees and that's part of the justification waiving those before 2024. Do we feel like the folks who have been out of compliance since 2024 are going to feel like they're being hit with unknown fees, or is the rationale behind that that over the last two years, the departments have been working closely enough with them that we assume they already know because it's more recent?

I mean, there might be some that don't know, but because it is that two-year window, it's still relatively close within the time that we would have gone back to collect anyway. had we been enacting this process.

Okay.

Other questions? Or discussion on the motion, I should say? Okay. All right, Commissioner Items, there's nothing specific. Does any Commissioner have an item to address? Next session, I see we're canceled for tomorrow, is that correct, Madam Clerk?

I just got two sessions tomorrow.

Okay, so if there's any breaking report on an external committee or anything you wanted to bring forward now at any time.

I don't know, it's not breaking, but I'll go over there and see the committees that I attended in the last week. We had the Flood Authority meeting And we were going over a number of local projects that different jurisdictions are working on. But the one thing of note, and I'm bringing this up because we've talked about it here extensively, within the flood mitigation plan regionally, the dam keeps being talked about, and I know the board here has said we support the flood mitigation strategy, except for the dam. The flood authority group was asking about, they're doing a lot of public outreach, and they stated that they'd like to come in somewhere at the Thurston County Fair. I said, that's great, but the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners has said that they do not support the dam concept, so if you were to come and table, that would be the hope or expectation that you can do outreach on the flood mitigation strategy, but fire commissioners meeting. It was really good. Dave up the Grove attended and kind of gave an update on wild land wildfire readiness. It was widely publicized about last year how the state cut 50% of the wildfire budget from $120 million down to $60 million. That has been restored, so the state's wildfire budget is whole at $120 million. I think we spent about $300 million last year, but that's also with federal funds and things like that. We talked about reimbursement schedules, so a lot of jurisdictions are kind of feeling the strain when they send out resources to these mobilizations, and it's taking months if not years to get reimbursement. agencies reluctant to send out resources to participate and when these fires happen it's it's a mix of local jurisdictions state resources federal resources international resources and so we we stress to commissioner up the growth the importance of reimbursement rates uh timelines he said he actually said it was kind of the first time that he'd heard about that complaint which was interesting because it was a big part of the State Council of Firefighters legislative push was stressing the need for those to be reimbursed timely. So he said he wanted to talk about that more, which is cool. And then we talked about the uncertainty of the federal funding landscape because if you kind of watch what's going on, there's a lot of, allow for federal money to come into state and local jurisdictions for emergencies. We haven't seen any of those contracts and kind of the vibe or the understanding is that these contracts are intermingling like policy initiatives that don't have anything to do with emergency operations, that there's, you know, things that are, and we're all familiar with this, this has been going on across the board, you know, things like DEI initiatives, immigration policy, you know, there's Things you know the stories I've heard where you know there'll be a contract that says in the contract that says no Undocumented persons can benefit from the implementation of this contract and it'll be something like dealing with wildfire tree canopy surveys or something like that. And you're like, well, there's no way to guarantee that an undocumented person isn't going to be made safer in that whole region if we harden structures or if we make sure brush is removed from around buildings. So it's hard to say where that conversation's at, but there's a lot of people wondering how that's going to play out. So those two things were probably the biggest thing. I didn't attend the Visitor Convention Bureau meeting because we were in that marathon meeting last week. But there will be a group of them coming before the board on Friday to share about the experiences in City Nation Place. So that should be cool. And then I think we all went to the Public Works Rodeo. I heard Emily did much worse than last year.

No way. They changed the rules this year. Oh, they changed the rules on you. They're no longer doing it based on speed. It's precision. Did you do it? What was your score?

I killed it. Perfect.

What is it?

It was a perfect score until I did it. It was like the best. I mean, they were like the trophies. I don't need the trophies. I don't have trophies at home.

What was your scoring general?

I'm not a bragger, Emily, but I did better than anyone ever in the history of rodeos.

She did double, Emily did like twice as good as I did. It blows me away that every time I try so hard and she just, it just creams me.

Yeah, I did a pretty good job. I was going to actually add that to Commissioner's items, but you beat me to it.

I outed you. Yeah, she blew the cone budget. We're going to have to replace at least 60 cones.

I think that was me, honestly. Every year I think I'm going to do a little bit better, and I think every year I take out more cones.

All right. I MISSED IT BECAUSE I WAS OTHER PLACES.

PUBLIC WORKS DID A REALLY GOOD JOB LAYING THAT WHOLE COURSE OUT. IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY. COULDN'T HAVE ASKED FOR A BETTER WEATHER.

I DON'T LIKE TO LOSE. THE WAY COMMISSIONER CLAUS WAS TALKING IT UP.

YOU USUALLY PROBABLY WOULDN'T. I THINK I HAVE ANOTHER CALLING.

Hey, I did push the tire into the little square. That's all I remember that I actually accomplished was I was one of six, is what they said, getting this little tire into a square with this huge machine. So I will just take that as a win.

I'll take it. While we're talking about visitor conventions, so I thought maybe, County Manager, could you maybe say what we learned at the meeting we had with Grace Harbor about the ORV park? I mean, it wasn't a lot, but just to update folks, because we hadn't heard about it in a while.

Sure, yeah. We learned that Grace Harbor is still interested in some type of partnership with the county. Where we left it with the previous county administrator, we sent over a boil and play interlocal agreement just to see if that's the format that they would be interested in. So we were able to work with Commissioner Miller, who is also the chair of Grace Harbor, to resend that over to their public utilities director, and they'll be reviewing that. Once they get it back, then we'll sit down and talk a little bit more specifically about what a partnership would look like. I think the concept is still pretty exciting for the county, but we need to just get a sense from Grace Harbor about what their capacity is and what they're interested in at this time. Commissioner Miller mentioned off the bat that they're looking at the idea of increasing some of their camping, their RV camping, et cetera, so that they can have a more steady revenue stream coming in to help offset some of the costs for that park.

Yeah, it sounded to me like they'd had a lot of change. They're in the process of change, so I think the item kind of got bounced from desk to desk, and so they really hadn't followed up on our initial sending of a template.

But they had some leadership in their parks department leave. Vicki Raines was a big change, and then Sam Kim.

so they're kind of in flux. Yeah, and so it was on, and so now it's on the desk of the public works director, but it seemed like he was, anyway. So anyway, yeah, kind of what the county manager said, like what I was hearing was that they're still interested in the big ideas, but But in the short term, they want to tweak it enough to like, so it's at least revenue neutral and not a revenue drain. So they were looking at maybe making some tweaks just to, because their budget is in really terrible, it sounded like really rough position as ours has been. And they're looking for any way to make sure they're not, you know, subsidizing something that's draining money when it doesn't need to be.

I think at the very least, we can partner with them on some requests to either the legislature or...

Yeah, we started talking a little bit about that, about how we would position ourselves in pushing them to have it open to the public. I mean, they took money from RCO, so they have to have it. You have, like, 10 years or whatever. If it's not available to the public, you can end up...

Okay, that's that update. And then I guess I'll just update for me on the... I spoke at the South Sound Military Community Partnership on behalf of Thurston County. I was pleased to do that because I've been going to that for many years and Thurston County's never been invited to speak at it until this time. I got five minutes, which isn't a lot. So instead of thanking everyone, which was what some speakers did, I spent my five minutes actually talking about projects that I wanted to show Thurston County in a good light and all the different things that we're doing. So I didn't thank any military leadership or legislators, which I felt bad about that. I just had five minutes to kind of dial through what I think that our major accomplishments have been as they connect to military community and infrastructure and all that stuff. So it seemed like it was a good chance to speak about that. I got some good feedback about it.

Yeah, Chair, from where I was sitting at the table, the other folks made comment about how Thurston County, after your comments, is really on the move and going forward. I think the comments you made, if we could get a hold of that speech, because he did a great job of summarizing how much Thurston County has been doing in the last few years. There is so much that we're in it day to day that we forget that all these different things, all these different initiatives that the county's been working on is substantial. And so a few folks leaned over to me and said, he just made me proud to live our 1% work in Thurston County. So I know you're being modest, but I thought it was great. That's why we started clapping for you, because some of the things you're saying are huge. And while I think thanks is part of the given, especially for our federal and state delegates who have been fighting for dollars for us so much, it's really great to show that we are taking those opportunities and really trying to make a better Thurston County. And the executive director, I think her name is Maria Tobin, mentioned that. Yeah, she wanted to connect and talk about how Thurston County can facilitate more engagement for our county, but Thurston County specifically. So great job representing us. I thought your high points were great, and it's things that we need to continue to get that message out. And what a great platform to do that in a situation where there's so many community leaders all gathered together at once.

Will they be inviting us more, do you think?

I hope so. I mean, Pierce County's been up there before. I don't know if it's an automatic standing item, but at least periodically they want jurisdictional kind of reports. You know, we had a couple of years of no meetings because of, and then we had the last one was canceled because of federal government. It was in Somebody told me there was some directive that military leadership shouldn't be talking to local leaders, so they canceled the last meeting. I don't remember who was telling me this, but then they clarified that they only meant federal. Oh, okay. So they didn't mean local. So anyway, we're back on track with our periodic meetings, which are I think twice a year maybe, maybe quarterly. Commissioner Klaus, do you know?

They do an annual meeting, and then they have work groups throughout the year.

There's only one annual meeting? Shoot, I feel like it was at least twice a year, but okay. Other commissioner items before we adjourn? All right, thank you. We're adjourned.